(c) Any regulatory preemption of State law shall be restricted to the minimum level necessary to achieve the objectives of the statute pursuant to which the regulations are promulgated.
In Altria Group v. Good, the Court reiterates that "Congress may indicate pre-emptive intent" in two ways: "through a statute's express language or through its structure and purpose.
Express preemption occurs only when a federal statute explicitly confirms Congress's intention to preempt state law.
See also Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp. For example, the courts have held that the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) preempts state laws directed at conduct actually or arguably prohibited or protected by the NLRA or conduct Congress intended to leave unregulated.
Under the Tenth Amendment, Congress may not make a law that forces a state government to take some action that it would not have otherwise taken.
[13][14][15] The court rejected the respondents' argument that the anti-authorization provision was a valid preemption of state law under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S.
[16] The Supremacy Clause, the court pointed out, "is not an independent grant of legislative power to Congress" but "[i]nstead, it simply provides a rule of decision.
"[17] For a federal provision to validly preempt state law, "it must represent the exercise of a power conferred on Congress by the Constitution[,] pointing to the Supremacy Clause will not do",[18] and "since the Constitution confers upon Congress the power to regulate individuals, not States, [the] provision at issue must be best read as one that regulates private actors.
"[21] The court illustrated express preemption with Morales v. Trans World Airlines concerning a provision of the Airline Deregulation Act that used language that seemed directed to the states and similar to the issue in Murphy: [T]o ensure that the States would not undo federal deregulation with regulation of their own, the Act provided that 'no State or political subdivision thereof...shall enact or enforce any law, rule, regulation, standard, or other provision having the force and effect of law relating to rates, routes, or services of any [covered] air carrier.'
This language might appear to operate directly on the States, but it is a mistake to be confused by the way in which a preemption provision is phrased.
As we recently explained, we do not require Congress to employ a particular linguistic formulation when preempting state law.
"[25] The court then explained why preemption was not applicable to the PASPA provision prohibiting states from authorizing sports betting: In sum, regardless of the language sometimes used by Congress and this Court, every form of preemption is based on a federal law that regulates the conduct of private actors, not the States.
It certainly does not confer any federal rights on private actors interested in conducting sports gambling operations.
If a private citizen or company started a sports gambling operation, either with or without state authorization, §3702(1) would not be violated and would not provide any ground for a civil action by the Attorney General or any other party.